Truck is back up and running!

[farmtruc]

Something doesn't sound right, when u say the rockers have about 40 thou play, hmmmm. The rocker tip should be flush against the valve tip, no play up and down. It'll have a little if u wiggle the tip back and forth. When a stock rocker is tightened, it touches the valve tip and pushrod then it tightens a little more;
Compressing against the two, no lash.
The lifters are actually preloaded, no lash. Now if Ur compressing the lifter/plunger and the lifter is bled down, there may appear to be lash.

Check push rod length again. Remember, the lifter plunger will push down about or close to 80 thou of preload

[f4tal]

I asked Geoff from EPS more than twice about the pushrod length just to be safe. He said with my milled 862's i should run the 7.4's due to the EPS smaller circle base in the cams. I bought the 7.4's and ran them in my stock 862's while my other set was being finished. I never had any loud valvetrain or lifter tick etc... Now with my shaved heads it sounds loud as hell. Im sure with the raised compression and through the LT's the sound is even more magnified. But i thought valvetrain noise was due to the lack of length not too long of a PR. I may order some 7.375s and see how those will do. I figured if i had normal valvetrain noise with the 7.4's on the stock heads then i should drop the PR length the same amount that the new heads were milled.

[farmtruc]

You're on the right path of thinking, I'm just saying, there is NO valve lash on the rockers/valves, as you tighten them, you're preloading the lifter.